


Home

by 13starbuck42



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Post-Episode: s11e02 This, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 17:16:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13594701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13starbuck42/pseuds/13starbuck42
Summary: They’d gotten things cleaned up and replaced pretty quickly, but it was hard to part with their broken belongings... it stung a little to see them shattered, thrown in a dumpster and forgotten.





	Home

They had been to IKEA so many times she’d lost count… four maybe?  It was the third trip when she’d caved and tried the meatballs, and they’d gone at least once more since then.  Plus today, so maybe five?  Five trips to IKEA to replace everything those Russian assholes had destroyed, and as she pulled up the long gravel drive she swore they’d just survive with what they had because she wasn’t going back.  The meatballs weren’t _that_ good.

She hauled in the bags, filled with inane items: a pepper grinder, a spoon rest, four throw pillows, a vase, and a canister set.  “We can’t just keep flour and sugar in the paper bags, Mulder,” she’d chastised.  “Scully, we don’t keep flour and sugar at all…”  But maybe they’d start, because she liked pancakes on the weekends, thought about surprising him with sweet potato pie sometime, needed to make a roux for the cheese sauce.  And it didn’t escape her that they’d both said “we.”  So she’d bought the canister set.

She found Mulder hauling the last of the wreckage over to the fire pit in the yard behind the house.  They’d gotten things cleaned up and replaced pretty quickly, but it was hard to part with their broken belongings.  The couch, the shelves, the lamps… they’d chosen them together all those years ago, and it stung a little to see them shattered, thrown in a dumpster and forgotten.  So they’d decided to burn everything and say goodbye on their own terms.

Scully set a bottle of Malbec and two glasses on the small table and settled herself on the adirondack bench.  Mulder already had the fire going, and threw two splintered chair legs on the growing pyre.  He took a glass of wine and sat beside her.  “Cheers,” he said, eyes glowing with the light of the fire before them and the stars above them.  

“What are we toasting, Mulder?  That’s our furniture you’re burning…”  She felt weighted and heavy, surprisingly sad; burdened by loss both material and emotional.  They were just _things_ , just pieces of wood and cloth and plaster and glass.  Mundane things, much like the new things she had just stacked in cupboards and cabinets and lined up along the back of the stove.

But the old things held memories.

“Mulder, remember our first night here, when you tripped over the edge of the rug?” she asked quietly.  From the corner of her eye, she saw him smile.  “Yeah, Scully, I do.  You sent me to the kitchen for more wine,” he chuckled, “and you moved the --”  

“I did not!  Mulder, I did not move the rug!”  Scully shouldered into him playfully chuckled along with him.

“Fine, fine.  But you did move the bookshelf.” 

“Your poor little toes!”  She laughed harder, put her arm over her belly as she recalled hearing him yelp from the bedroom when he’d stubbed his toes.  He hadn’t been able to wear shoes for two weeks.  “Yes, I did move the bookshelf.”  She paused, considering.  “You always put my favorite coffee cups where I couldn’t reach them.  I had to use that little stool to get one down.”

“Even that didn’t work!  You swiped three or four of them out at once and they all shattered, remember?”  He roared with laughter and his wine sloshed when he swung his arm for visual effect.  They’d been watching the sunrise; she’d gone to make coffee, and he had heard the crash from the front porch.  He came running inside to find her sitting on the countertop, stranded in a sea of broken ceramic, tears in her eyes.  

“How about the spider, Mulder, remember that?  It was huge!”  She smiled broadly and leaned against him.  “How could I forget?  You told me it was dead.  ‘I think you should touch it,’” he mimicked her voice, ”and I was an idiot for trying.”  He laughed, hearty and full.  “I must have jumped six feet in the air when that sucker moved!  Scared the shit out of me!  I still can’t believe my elbow went through the coffee table...”  He shook his head, and his eyes twinkled. 

She sighed, laden with years of memories, and he lifted his arm to make room for her under his shoulder.  “And the first time we made love on the couch…  and on the floor in front of the couch.”  Her voice was quiet, contemplative.

“And on the kitchen counter.  And the kitchen table.  We did pretty good, didn’t we Scully?”  He squeezed her into him, pressed a kiss into her hair, and got up to add more fuel to the fire.  She refilled their glasses.  

“Mulder...” she questioned as he sat down and pulled her back against him.  “Doesn’t any of this bother you?  We’re burning memories here, and you don’t seem the least bit affected by it.”  

Mulder leaned his head back to gaze up at the stars.  Smoke drifted in and out of his view, hiding and revealing the moon.  

“Of course it bothers me.  It isn’t fun to watch our things go up in flames…  but we aren’t burning the memories.  Quite the opposite, really, because those memories are burned into me, Scully.  I’ll never forget tripping over the rug you moved,” he winked, “or the broken coffee cups, or all the places we’ve made love.  But I don’t need the rug or the cups or the furniture to remember.  I don’t need a lamp to remember our first fight here.  I don’t need a throw pillow to remember the nights you cried for our son.  I don’t need the table to remember the meals we’ve shared, the ottoman to remember the movies we’ve watched, or the coat rack to remember the day you left.”  His voice caught, on that last one, and he thought for a second he wouldn’t be able to finish this.  Mulder sipped his wine, felt her burrow deeper into his shoulder, and continued.  

“We bought all those things together.  We traipsed all over the place to find just what we wanted, what we both wanted.  And then everything fell apart, it all fell apart and you left and I hid.  But now, Scully, everything feels… right.  Like it’s falling back into place.  You’re here now, with me, and I can’t help but think that all the shitty IKEA furniture we just put together is a fresh start for us.  The old stuff, the stuff we’re burning… we’ll have all those memories, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world, but now is our chance to make new memories.  Here… together.”

Mulder set their empty glasses on the table, wrapped his arms around her, and they both looked up at the night sky.  “Scully… come home.  Please?”  He pleaded with her, sent his request up to the stars, hoped with all his heart the sparkling night diamonds would convince her it was time to come home.  She turned in his arms to face him, feathered a kiss across his lips, nuzzled her nose into his cheek.  “I am home, Mulder.”

**Author's Note:**

> This prompt begs to be a smutty little thing, but honestly Ghouli still has me reeling and I’m feeling nostalgic and sappy today. So, here’s some fluff. It makes my little heart happy, and I hope you enjoy it. This was a fun one to write. Written for the tumblr prompt: I think you should touch it/him/her.


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